Chess concert CD? — Page 4

Ashley, don't worry about missing the Murray Head videos. I like Murray and I guess I can see why he sounds the way he does (i.e. excessively whiny) on the concept recording of "Pity the Child" if I look at the song from a different perspective, but he sounds as if he can barely squeak out the notes in those videos. That note at the end of "A Taste of Pity"? What the hell was THAT?!

I remember doing some research on the Danish recording a little while ago and found a thread with a link to a site with it for sale, but it seemed awfully expensive and I quickly put it out of my mind. I think I'll just wait until it shows up on eBay.

Okay... well, being a poor college student, it looks like that recording's going to have to wait. Thanks for the info, guys.

And I believe you, Lexi, but I still have a morbid curiousity about those clips. Especially since now I want to hear the awful high note! It's more the principle of the thing... RealMedia files should just go away already.

Is the one you have the first print with the cut songs (Der Kleine Franz, Commie Newspapers, etc)? If so, I'd love to bug you for a copy as well.

I saw this as well and really enjoyed it. What really fascinated me was how it was perfectly cast...however NOW I'm questioning that, lol.

From the discussions going on, it seems as though Sutton was way off on Svetlana...maybe it was because she was, as someone stated, thrown in and not originally planned...?

But hey, how bout that Norm Lewis though, eh? Love him singing that role. It makes me melt...

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Updated On: 2/10/06 at 09:45 PM

And I always pictured as sort of a dowdy contrast to Florence. Its a role that is really up to a director's concept - but if you can sing the hell out of the role - I'd say go for it - whatever type you are - its a very non specific physical role.

Sorry I'm a little late in chiming in here. There's so much I could comment on that I don't know where to start!

"I know this has been said a million times but i guess it needs restating. The Danish Cast recording is, for the most part, exactly what the ORIGINAL Chess was, in London. It is the original story with most of the music. This story focused more on Florence and Anatoly and placed secondary status on Freddie/Svetlana/etc. Freddie doesn't even play chess in the second act as he returns as a TV correspondant..."

Sweedboy, that's the version that I saw (I saw the show in New Zealand last year). It's the first version that I became familiar with, and I thought it worked really well. I'd love to see a Broadway revival with a book similar to the original.

Now I'm off to formulate my thoughts on the main characters!

Well the original is a little rap-like

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I myself am a fan of anything Tim Rice has written, so I wasn't surprised that I adored "Chess." There's a little good in each version, and eventually I hope to stitch that all together into my own revision effort.

That said, the reason there's a book problem with "Chess" is that whoever's working on it at the time loses the point. It can't be both a love triangle and a story of chess amid Cold War politics unless there's an extremely good balance between the two. Otherwise, the concept of trying to pin the chess metaphor on both the love and the Cold War politics falls flat and it becomes (as sweetestsiren's sig unwittingly put it) "just projecting your intellectualism on people who have NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!"

I know of a young playwright who has done services as a dramaturg on several productions of "Chess," and he turned out a very good version of the Broadway/U.S. tour script that found a comforting middle. (PM me if you want to see...er...know more.) It's not the best one ever done, but it has the most hope when Samuel French will only license the Broadway version in the States,

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